Ivory Lines Lead...

I have a bunch of random thoughts floating around in my head and I feel like putting them down on...well, I was going to say "putting them down on paper," but that's hardly the case, now is it? More so like putting them into bunches of zeros and ones which will magically be reassembled in front of you through the internets (which I hear is like a bunch of tubes like those cool pneumatic devices in Home Depot, wizzing whatever I tap out to you in an easy to digest visual form!).

Despite being done with school, I have found myself to be increasingly busy; which has spurred me to design this post with your busy schedule in mind! I have devised a simple number scheme by which you might pick and choose only those parts of the post that interest you - so you can skip bits which you find irrelevant - in order to save you time and mental effort! And just so you know, each portion will (hopefully) be quite bite-sized; squeezing much thought into a (somewhat) thought-provoking tid-bit!

(Addendum: Good lord was I wrong! Get ready for some long-winded rambling!)

This post will go as follows:
(1) YouTube and Why We Love Violence
(2) Depersonalizing the Person
(3) Why the JWs Might Be On To Something
(4) Innocently Devious Vs. Deviously Innocent
and
(5) Movies

Let's begin!

(1) YouTube and Why We Love Violence

Some of the most popular videos on YouTube (and the internet video sites in general) are clips of people hurting themselves. And not just some guy tripping a small distance and getting a rug burn. Sites like Break.com are all about the most horrific things happening to people: broken bones, third-degree burns, possible paralyzation (<--made up word?), etc. I have seen my fair share of disturbingly painful videos and have always wondered why these clips are so popular. A while back I was at a Beck concert, standing in line for a beer, when I saw a person fall and crack their head on the unforgiving concrete. Unlike YouTube videos with comments like, "wut a dumass!!1," the first thing I felt was sick. A total stranger fell and wasn't moving. Whether he was dead, paralyzed, or totally fine didn't matter; what mattered was my immediate instinct to help him. A call to 911 and a some helpful medical professionals later and he was being led off to recuperate. This was totally unlike anything I had seen on the internet. So the question is: why didn't I laugh at this stranger's misfortune like the online witnesses or the countless viewers of the video? I've thought allot about it and here is my conclusion: catharsis mixed with schadenfreude. Why do we like being "scared to death" by horror films? Why do we like screaming our heads off on roller coasters? When we can be in a safe place, but feel like we're experiencing something awful (falling to our death on a 50-foot drop on a coaster/being chased by an axe-wielding maniac through the place-holder of an actor) we can face our fears in a controlled environment and come out safe and possibly less fearful of future personal incidents. It's not as obvious with pain; but I think that watching a person get their teeth mashed-in on an escalator both makes us thankful (happy even) that it's happening to someone else and releases the fear that it will happen to us.

Think of it this way: you see someone find a $100 bill on the ground. Chances are you then think, "darn, too bad it wasn't me," and part of your brain thinks that since it happened to someone else that it won't happen to you any time soon. In other words, if lightning strikes your friend while you're standing 10 feet away, you don't think that it will then happen to you any time soon; and chances are you think that the chances of it happening to you (since it just happened to your friend) are incredibly lessened. So watching pain happen to someone else is almost like taking a tincture insuring your safety.


(2) Depersonalizing the Person

I often wonder, since I'm a waiter, how some people treat others so awfully and still respect themselves. I have been treated like dirt (or even less than dirt) more times than I would like to remember. If you have never worked in the service industry, thank your lucky stars (or whatever you find lucky)...you have avoided a personal hell. If it were not for the decent pay, I would be out of this industry in a second. Show me another job where I could possibly make an easy $300 in 6 hours and I'll apply right now. So, what is it I'm referring to specifically?

I get that people from other cultures might not get our customs. I might not like a $10 tip on a $150 bill; but if the guests recently moved here from Argentina I understand to some extent. But what about the people who have lived here all their lives? What about the people who say to me, "Don't worry, I used to be a waiter, I'll take care of you," and then tip you 8% after near perfect service? What about the people who come in rearing for a fight and ready to tussle over how many discounts can be used at one table, or how the steak (all of which they just consumed) was not good quality and therefore a refund is in order and it's your (the waiter's) fault and is coming out of your tip? The people who put five one-dollar bills on the table at the beginning of the meal and every time something doesn't go perfect they take one away (but only when you are there to see it happen)?

My theory goes like this: our society has trained us to believe that we not only can, but should get everything desired. Even if that desire is unreasonable. Buying items off of the internet, over the phone, etc, has trained us to think that we aren't dealing with people so much as we are dealing with autonomous givers of all desires as long as a base amount of money is delivered. You wouldn't think to thank your computer for delivering your e-mail, that would be absurd. But the slippery slope begins. Next you stop thinking there is anyone to thank for deliver your physical mail (it's the mailman's job anyway, right?); plus you don't have to see the mailman, you can wait til the mail is there and then get it. Next you stop seeing the store-clerk as a person and more so a mediator between you and the cash-register (obviously...I mean, you don't tip the girl at Macy's for selling you a sweater). The problem arises when you reach industries like restaurant waiters.

I've talked to SO many people who think that high-end-restaurant servers make $10/12/15/per hour, plus tips. If this were the case, tipping 10% wouldn't be so bad; but what happened to putting some thought into our actions and checking up on etiquette? A mere 80 years ago (or less) the proper way to use a fork was a dire situation...now we just take a wild guess and call it a day. If I don't know how much to tip a valet, I freaking Google it and find out (or ask a friend, or find an etiquette guide, or ask the valet him/herself - trust me, they won't mind - or do any number of things to find out). We don't live this way with anything else...case in point: a person on the street runs up and washes your window while you're at a red light...do you assume they are doing it for free? No, you assume they want money and you go through the thought process of figuring out what they want (is $1 good enough? $5? $8 Do they deserve anything?). Your server makes minimum wage and lives off of tips. Two $150 checks a month will not sustain the average person. People have stopped seeing their servers as hard-working individuals, and more like robots who deliver food and desired accoutrements.


(3) Why the JWs Might Be On To Something

If you are confused, by JWs I mean Jehovah's Witnesses. You are most assuredly more aware of Mormons than you are JWs; but there are a mass amount of JWs around (they simply don't evangelize as aggressively). I will simply explain one of their main practices rather than assume you know or don't know about it. The JWs do not celebrate much of anything. Christmas, Easter, and even birthdays are not hallowed events to the stout JW. The JWs understand that almost every celebration on the Judeo-Christian calendar has a pagan origin. For example: Christmas (the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth) is not taken by hardly anyone as the actual date of Christ's birth. Whether it is the celebration of the winter solstice, Saturnalia, or Yule, the origins of celebrating on (or close to) December 25th is pagan. The early Christian church, in an attempt to rid society of such practices, placed "Christ's birth" on this day. The result? Instead of celebrating non-Christian gods, or non-Christian ideas, Christ became the center of the day and other meanings dwindled.

In other words, Christmas, the celebration of Jesus Christ's birth (arguably one of the most important Christian holidays (second only to Christ's death and resurrection)) is firmly planted in the middle of a pagan celebration. Whereas this is simply accepted by modern-day Christians, this is unacceptable to the JWs. Anything not explicitly "Christian" takes away from the faith.

So what do I mean by saying that they have gotten something right? Well, first off, in my opinion the JWs have taken it too far. They have understood that pagan holidays (in their original form) are meaningless in the Christian faith and have therefore "banned" them all. The upside to this is that the material and hallow aspects of certain holidays (e.g. Eartha Kitt's Santa Baby) are pushed aside. The downside is that any meaning is abandoned. Imagine if we applied this to everyday life: modern understanding of combustion (and the resultant creation of the combustion engine and all that comes with it) would be abandoned because the "pagan" Greeks believed in phlogiston (the negative-weighted element responsible for things like combustion and oxidation). I understand that my example comparing something non-physical (pagan holidays) with something physical (chemistry) is extreme; and you might disagree with such a comparison; but I am simply making my point exceedingly clear. A more appropriate example would be abandoning democracy (something that has worked relatively well for the U.S.) because Plato, the Greek philosopher, who was "pagan" according to modern identification, coined the term and crafted the base for our modern system.

So the end result? We can hardly abandon everything begun by those whose beliefs we disagree with; but at the same time, we should not give up on what we hold true simply because society tells us that it's ok. The good in the JWs beliefs is the realization that modern understanding (and devaluing (in a sense)) of the real meaning of a holiday is harmful. Rather than accept the giant bunny and chocolate eggs of Easter, remember the real reason and don't give up on celebrating the true meaning of what it is that you believe...whatever that may be.


(4) Innocently Devious Vs. Deviously Innocent

This topic is based solely on the observations of one person and my discussion of it will possibly alienate all 3 of you who check up on this blog. But ima do it anyway. I have often been told I look very young, very naive, and very innocent. This has been going on since high school. That - high school - is the earliest people should be considered innocent or not innocent in my opinion; if you are 10 years old and multiple people express their opinion that you are not innocent, there might be a problem. But I'm sure your police record confirms that and my assumption is unnecessary.

I work with a person, a woman, a slightly older woman (not old, but older than me by enough years to have more experience than I) who is pretty good with her psychology. Most everyone I work with has expressed, in one way or another, that I am trustworthy, innocent, and, well, childlike. So much so that during conversation explicitly sexual/vulgar, certain co-workers have yelled out, "Shhh, Grant can hear!" One conversation went as such:

Person 1: Man, Grant, you are really stressed!
Person 2: Seriously, you need to get laid.
Me: Heh.
Person 1: No, I don't think Grant is that kind of person
Person 2: What do you mean?
Person 1: Grant seems like the kind of person who needs to cuddle when he's stressed, not something overtly sexual.

The one exception, the woman I mentioned, was involved in a conversation with me and a few others about my age. It was a guessing game. The first person guessed I was 21. The second guessed I was 23. The third said I looked 22, but I was probably older; it was most likely the innocent face that made me look young. This woman, the psychology one, said, "Oh, he's not innocent. It's just an act. Trust me, he's nowhere as innocent as you might think."

The funny thing is that, at this point in the job, she could not possibly have known any of the intimate details of my life. She simply looked into my eyes and knew that my "innocence" was not actual, but physical (or "skin deep").

This raised the question in my mind: is it better to appear innocent and not be so, or appear not innocent (what we'll call corrupt) but actually be so? Yes, I do understand that there is a middle ground: the person who appears neither innocent nor corrupt and is neutral in the way of action (or some variation where neutrality is part of the equation). This person, however, is, at least in my mind, fictional. Pretend there is a scale of 1-10, 1 being totally innocent and 10 being totally corrupt. I would imagine that nearly nobody would be a 1 or a 10. The sweetest person on earth has probably had a daydream about dirty sex; and the most despicable serial killer has probably loved a kitten (or something similar, you get my point). This being the case, I'm examining the people who appear other than their actual personality.

First off, the person who seems corrupt but is not. The upside: proving people wrong can be incredibly gratifying, and people are more comfortable being themselves around someone who seems damaged. The downside: this person seems un-trustworthy and is treated as such (not getting as many job opportunities, missing out on romantic partners, etc).

Second off, the person who seems innocent but is not. The upside: people trust this person, jobs are more easily obtained, romantic partners are more easily obtained, and (if the "corruption" is significantly dominant) innocent people can be taken advantage of much easier. The downside: people think of this person as a goody-two-shoes and do not open up as much, he or she is seen as holier-than-thou and is somewhat despised for it, and any reveal of the "true self" is only accepted with shock, lack of belief, and disappointment.
So what's the end result? Neither are good...at least in most cases. I guess the best thing to be is totally open about your true nature so people treat you as you really are. If you are truly an innocent person, act that way, reap the rewards of it and deal with the downsides of it; if you are truly a corrupt person, act that way, reap the rewards of it and deal with the downsides of it.


(5) Movies

It's possible you read all that babble above (though unlikely), in which case, you need something light and refreshing. Like a lemon ice slushy on a hot summer's day. Hence the movie section!

Ok, so here we go with quick reviews of recently viewed films!

Wall-E
This was a seriously amazing addition to the all-CG film repertoire. As a film student, I am always impressed with films that rely wholly on the visual aspect. Yeah, dialogue is important; but if you can tell the story solely with visuals and sound effects, you have made a great film. The sound design in Wall-E is absolutely amazing. The few lines of dialogue move the film along; but one finds him/herself waiting impatiently for the next scene of purely "sound effect" driven action. It could have used a little less of the strong-handed, green-peace slaps across the face; but all in all a great film.
Australia
Baz Luhrmann is, in my opinion, one of the great directors of our time. He ignores convention and creates worlds unlike anything solely in our world or in the film world. He meshes modern rock with aristocrat-society/ballroom dance with modern romance/and urban insanity with archetypal romantic antiquity. So why shouldn't his attempt at a sweeping, romantic, Australian western work? Well, multiple reasons it seems. His love of quick cutting, seemingly unrelated inter-cutting, and modern music infusion leaves this film feeling disjointed...almost rushed. The entire beginning, almost 30 minutes of the film, are confusing at best. The story finally takes hold (and it truly is a good story); but Baz's desire to break the mold leaves the audience scratching their collective heads and hoping for some clarification. All in all, this is definitely a film worth watching; but here's to hoping that Baz sticks with what he does best in the future and leaves the wide-open-western for the less inventful.
James Bond: Quantum of Solace
This isn't a complaint - it's simply something I find amusing - but if you stood outside a theater showing this JB film and asked each person coming out what the title meant, 80% (if not more) would have no answer.

James Bond movies, to me, are films about a suave, debonair, woman's man who uses crazy gadgets, kills countless "baddies" in crazy ways, sleeps with every [attractive] woman encountered (somehow every woman involved with JB is smoking hot), and hardly breaks a sweat. This film breaks the mold. A blonde Bond goes rogue, uses no crazy high-tech gadgets, doesn't sleep with every woman available, and has a particularly hard time doing things that are no sweat to prior Bonds. In my opinion, this is incredibly refreshing and stimulates the Bond series. A same-old Bond doing the same-old thing is expected; but a Bond who breaks all stereotypes is just what the series needs. No, this isn't an Oscar-winning movie by any means; but an action flick that doesn't succumb to the expected is always welcome.
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Alright, that was much longer than expected; but I got everything out that I planned to. Hopefully you picked one (or more!) topics and read my typically confusing and possibly incoherent (yet precisely worded) rant/s and got your mind stirring on why I'm right or wrong. I love a vigorous discussion based solely on what you find wrong with my ideas. Hey, without disagreement we wouldn't have much innovation at all, now would we?

Goodnight to you and yours.

P.S. Kudos to anyone who knows where this blog's title comes from. And extra kudos to anyone who knows what it means...because I sure as hell don't.